Craft Night

Friday night is our craft night. Last night was no different - I packed up my Echo Flowers Shawl and headed over to Lisa's house. I managed to forget my camera, but I did have my phone with me (ahh, the joys of smartphones...)

This was where my knitting was at when we started*:



After liberal application of this:



and some of these:



(courtesy of Lauren's awesome baking skills).

And this was the state of my knitting when we called it a night:



I guess there are some evenings when excellent company and a glass or two of wine is more important than even knitting is.

*You can tell this is a mobile picture, especially when I point out that the yarn is slate grey...

Things I have learned from work...

1. The first day back of a new school year is not the day to break in a new pair of heels. Especially when you normally wear flats. Like 'everyday' normally.

2. Work really cuts into my knitting time. During the holiday it was a bad day if I managed to only do one repeat of a 8 row repeat. Since Monday I have managed to do three rows. And that includes the purl rows.

3. In order to function properly at work, I should not stay up late raiding. However, staying up late raiding is more fun than being fully functional at work.

Hopes

I've spent a good portion of the day thinking about how I would like to take more pictures of random things. Friends and gatherings, baking, knitting, random things. I tend to only take pictures of my FO's and I should change that.

For example, on Friday I baked peanut butter cookies. They were tasty. Then I took most of them (I say most because obviously you cannot offer food to people without tasting it first) to a friend's house and fed them to people. While we crafted. It was good, but I have no pictures.

Knitting-wise I have taken to making shawls. I'm really enjoying lace work in general, it's very satisfying and mostly quick.


Like Annis, a crescent shape shawlette, knit from the bottom edge up using short rows and a lace and nupps border.

Using Madelinetosh Sock Yarn in Terrarium, a beautiful foresty mix of greens and browns, it was knit up in about five days.

Taking quite a bit longer was Aeolin, but in fairness this shawl is about five times the size.

This was my first attempt at nupps and was mostly successful. It's such a huge shawl, I wear it as a hip scarf for my belly dancing. The beads are a matt size 6 seed bead from John Lewis which are a slightly darker shade than the yarn.

At the moment I'm working on Echo Flowers in a slate grey merino and silk mix from BC Garn. Pictures to follow when I break my camera out more often.

Quick Note...

Just a quick note to celebrate the fact that I have finally finished my Reading Mitts fingerless gloves. I've been working on these since about September, and they've been almost finished since October, but other projects kept getting in the way. Now they are finished, which is good as it's very cold outside!

In other news, I am learning how to crochet! So far, I can do the basic chain stitch, a double crochet stitch and a triple crochet stich, but now I'm a bit stuck as the resource I bought only has these sitches in and I need more before I can even think of trying the most basic patterns. Plus I haven't yet found a pattern I want to make.

Title-y

So I haven't updated for a while. But in fairness, I've had good reason. Half term was not the excitement I was hoping for and something bad happened and I haven't felt like updating.

But I have been knitting. I finished my Colour Swap 5 project with a little time to spare and it appears to have been loved by it's new owner which I'm grateful for. She has certainly been kind in her praise anyway.

Since then, I have made:
- a stole using Zauberball in reds, golden browns and ambers which is very pretty and was worn to my work's Christmas do.
- three dishcloths for Lisa's Christmas present - including a Dalek one.
- a hat using the Cascade Rustic I received in Colour Swap 4.
- a scarf using Arucania Ranco in peacock colours which is stunning and sort of goes with the hat.
- started on a triangular shawl using another skein of the Ranco yarn.

But I have still not finished the fingerless mitts.

Lack of news

I've been quiet lately because I haven't really done too much lately. I'm still working on my CS5 project, which is coming up nicely, but taking it's time. This is the problem with making a big-ish project with sock weight yarn. And the pattern itself is kinda boring, but effective. Overall it's gonna take a bit more time, which isn't good as I wanted to get the parcel out before the last day this time, and that is rapidly coming up.

My mittens still need one more thumb on and the finishing to do, and my cowl is almost done, just two more ends to weave in and blocking, but I still haven't actually done it. Which is no good as it's getting really quite cold now.

Work is continuing more and more along a Jeremy Kyle theme and I'm desperately looking forward to half term which is in two weeks time. I'm so tired, and I've had a rotten cold for about three weeks now which really sucks. Hopefully a week off will help me get better and give me more time for knitting.

CS5

So I've signed up for the next Colour Swap. I'm looking forward to it - my partner this time seems to be more of a challenge. I've had a fantastic (even if I do say so myself) idea for the handmade item, have very excitedly found, ordered and received the yarn and cast on. Unfortuneately at the moment the way it's turning out is quite different to the way I had it pictured in my head. I'm going to keep plugging along and hope it's just the beginning phase, during which I often feel disappointed with a pattern - sometimes with reason and sometimes without.

In other knitting news, my mittens are almost finished - I have one more thumb to make and then the finishing. My cowl has been knit, but not yet finished and my Branching Out scarf is continuing slowly but surely.